


Traffic Vision

by theobligatedklutz



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: <-I actually don't believe this is the case but I wanna tag this with violence just in case, Alex saves Willie, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mention of blood, alex and willie are in love, in flashbacks, just flirting and helping with anxiety and holding handing and kithing mayhaps, mention of anxiety and symptoms of anxiety, mention of conversion therapy, mention of dissociative episode, mention of panic, please read the warnings, two boys in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28278468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theobligatedklutz/pseuds/theobligatedklutz
Summary: "He helps you breathe again."-He thinks about seeing Alex one last time as he watches his blooddrip drip dripdown his fingers.***5 times Willie saves Alex and the 1 time Alex saves him back.
Relationships: Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie & Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer & Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Caleb Covington & Willie
Comments: 41
Kudos: 264





	Traffic Vision

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anxiety willex fic anon](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=anxiety+willex+fic+anon).



> Only took me a month to write this. If you find a mistake, I'm rusted metal, what do you expect?
> 
> **PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS IN THE ADDITIONAL TAGS BEFORE YOU TREAD.**

_He wishes he never met Alex because now he can’t breathe without him. If he'd never met Alex, he wouldn’t have so many memories he couldn’t detach from as he withers out of existence. He never had a need to breathe, to remember, being dead came with its benefits. He could simply put those things behind him, there was no necessity for being alive or sentimental. But Alex gives him the power to. And without him...his chest feels like a rock sits there, tearing at nonexistent lungs with its jagged edges and filling his mouth with blood. He wonders if Alex ever felt the same way about him. Like if- Like if he can’t feel Alex’s constant warmth next to him, in his hand and against his cheeks, Willie will fall into oblivion. Willie fears oblivion the most._

_33 years ago, a dark room left cold in his bones and he fears that oblivion, that darkness, that nothingness. But Alex came out of nowhere, brought a fire with him and touched Willie’s soul, lit him up with it. He’s addicted to that hot warmth like a moth to a flame._

_But now he can’t have it. Not with his dying breaths. Not when he’s so close to disappearing. He thinks about seeing Alex one last time as he watches his blood_ drip drip drip _down his fingers._

***************

**1 ----**

  
  


“You like him, don’t you?”

The sun is low in the sky when Alex poofs into the garage for practise. Julie is not there yet neither is Luke and Alex settles down on the black studio couch next to Reggie, who’s strumming a lone chord on his bass. 

“What?” He asks, stilling at the way Reggie smiles around his words. 

“Willie. You like him. _A lot_.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” There’s a frayed thread on his shirt that looks so much more fascinating now and he fiddles with it, ignoring the look Reggie directs at him.

“I see the way you look at him, ‘lex. Or are we not going to talk about how when you start fidgeting and getting restless, you poof out on us...And then you’re back a few hours later with this dopey smile on your face?” Reggie teases, poking at one corner of his mouth and Alex huffs and slaps his hand away.

See, Alex knows Reggie notices the small things. He has a quiet but sharp eye as opposed to Luke. He pays attention to his family, he knows that’s the only thing he can do to watch out for them.

So Alex shouldn’t be surprised at Reggie’s words but he is because he’s been so easily discovered and his want for Willie is so blatant in his expressions and actions that even his friends are picking up on it. He wonders if Willie can tell too and oh dear god, he hopes on hope that he is at least subtle around Willie.

“What really gave it away?” Alex sighs, his hands sliding over his face covering the red that's taken over as he turns to his best friend.

“It’s just...he helps you breathe again. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you smile so easily like you do now. It’s really nice. I’m happy for you.” Reggie is wistful in the way he says the words, like he’s remembering middle school trips to the local park swing set and 16-year-old sunset curve busking at the subway and finding their love for music through chords and beats and hands and voices. 

Alex scoots closer to him, throwing a hand around his shoulders and wiping his eyes with his other hand. “Thanks, Reg.”

_He helps you breathe again._

-

He gets what Reggie was going on about when he finally gets his first anxiety attack in front of Willie. It comes out of nowhere, he wants to blame the stress of everything that he can’t understand about himself, about the world, about the afterlife. But he looks forward, trying to shake the bleary vision and buzzing in his head and connects gazes with Willie’s dark brown eyes.

They look hazel in the last sinking rays of tangerine sunlight and his sudden focus in the light catching Willie’s eye is what pulls him out of the disarray that is his mind. 

He finally notices the way Willie is standing in front of him. He has his hands up and he’s hunched down like Alex is a cornered animal and he doesn't wanna scare him off. There's distance between them. 

"I didn't know if I could touch you, you were not all here for a second." Willie answers in response to the confusion that takes over Alex’s face.

Alex swallows and wrings his fingers. "Sometimes, I get these moments where I can't breathe and everything around me gets too much...I don't know how to describe it."

"It’s okay.” Willie says looking straight at him, a comforting lopsided grin on his face as he finally comes to stand beside him, bumping his shoulder with Alex’s. He notices how having Willie close seems to send a wave of calmness through his soul, settling the rushing in his ears and stilling his trembling fingers.

“How’d you know to do that?” Alex asks and Willie furrows his eyebrows in question.

“Do what?”

“Nobody’s ever been able to calm me down like that.”

Willie laughs, brings his fingers up to ruffle Alex’s hair. “I didn’t do anything. Seemed like you handled it.” 

_No. Willie did something._ He looked at Alex like he was the only one there and Alex thinks that’s what brings him back. He knows he didn’t imagine it. Because even after his vision has cleared, Willie continues to steal glances of concern and it makes Alex’s chest tingle with something warm.

Then he gets it. Reggie’s words ring in his head. 

_He helps you breathe again._

“Hey Willie.”

“Yeah?”

“You can touch me. If I,” He gulps, looking up at Willie, at the unreachable kindness he holds within his eyes and the strength that sits in the curve of Willie’s shoulders and he knows he can trust the man in front of him. He discovers he’s known for a long time. “If I ever get like that again, you can touch me.”

  
  


**2 ----**

Julie doesn’t know Willie, she knows of him but she doesn’t know him and despite all that, she knows Alex is safe with him. Maybe it’s the way Alex’s eyebrows crease less whenever he poofs in after his “hangout” with Willie. Or the way he looks like he brought the sun with him. Whatever it is, she knows Alex is different, happier after Willie and Julie realizes she has love for a boy she’s never met.

It’s the night after Julie visits Luke’s parents and when she first learns about the jolts and Willie and Caleb that she truly admits that Willie might be the cure to the pain that sits like a ton of bricks over Alex’s heart.

They’re silently contemplating how to get into the Orpheum when Alex utters shaky, tear-stained words.

“This is my fault.” He sobs and Reggie, Luke and Julie snap their heads up to look at him.

“Alex, no, you couldn’t have known—”

Alex cuts Luke off with a huff. “No I should’ve known! People don’t do you favours out of the kindness of their hearts. Nobody’s ever there without wanting something in return! I just didn’t think- I didn’t think I would drag you guys into it. I wish I never met Willie—”

There’s a shuddering gasp as Alex covers his mouth.

Luke sits up, brings his hands up, his fingers quiver as he places them over Alex’s shoulder but it’s like his touch burns him because Alex jolts forward, wipes away the tears on his face and poofs off.

“Alex, wait—”

“Let him go.” Reggie is the one who says it, the despair colouring his voice a shock to Julie and she looks at him settling back down on the couch, tilting his head back and looking up at the ceiling. His lips quake and he bites down on them. 

The garage feels vacant, abandoned without Alex’s presence. Luke and Reggie feel it as much as Julie does but she knows he will come back.

She knows he’ll come back with lesser eyebrow creases and a glow and he’ll be okay.

-

Willie trips on his skateboard when Alex suddenly poofs into his pathway but he forgets almost everything about maintaining balance when he sees the tears in Alex’s eyes, staining his face and the sobs that leave his mouth in sharp gasps. Alex’s breaths rush out of him too fast, the beginnings of panic flitting through his body and Willie makes impact with the ground — knowing full well that if he was human, he would’ve torn his knees apart — in his haste to get to Alex.

“What happened? Did Caleb hurt you? Alex, talk to me!” It’s the unbelievably strong concern reverberating through Willie’s throat that jerks Alex out of his despaired regret-laden loop of _I wish I never met Willie I wish I never met Willie I wish I never met Willie_ _—_

“I’m sorry...I’m sorry!” Alex whispers and Willie brings his hands up, wrapping his fingers around Alex’s forearms, pressing closer into his space.

“For what? Alex…?” Guilt and concern swim in Willie’s eyes again, almost an exact match to the look he gave him at the Orpheum. 

_“I wish I never met Willie.”_

“I’m so glad you’re here. I...I’m so glad I met you.” Alex pulls him into his arms as he says the words, pushing his face into Willie’s shoulder.

It’s in that moment that Alex realizes the impossibility of meeting Willie if he had never died. How impossible hugging him here would’ve been if Willie had never bumped into him. He remembers a quote he read on a poster in Julie’s bedroom:

_The universe existed for billions of years and by a coincidence we ended up meeting._

Meeting eyes and hands and words that leave his battered heart a little more stitched together and that has to count for something.

He finds himself tightening his hold around Willie’s shoulders. That has to count for something. 

Willie doesn’t say another word. Just holds him right back, his arms firm and warm against Alex’s waist.

_I'm so happy I met you._

-

He embraces Willie again the next morning and this time, it’s Willie that presses his face against Alex’s shoulder, holding him tightly, curling his fingers around Alex’s shirt, an unsaid desperate plea of “don’t go” in his movements. Alex feels like maybe he can have this. He can have this with Willie.

But the small scared voice in his head reminds him of Caleb. _Caleb_.

And Alex pulls back because Caleb could be right around the corner and even if he’s leaving, crossing over, Willie isn’t. He has to stay and the last thing he wants is for Willie to suffer for his actions. 

_“I’ll see you around, hotdog.”_ He almost pulls Willie back to him, just to whisper the words stuck in his throat—

**3 ----**

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Alex says it breathlessly, in the middle of a panic attack that doesn’t call for the words. 

An expanse of common conversation had turned into rambles of “why is it so difficult to exist as a ghost for me” and how “I can’t even ghost right” and Willie had settled a hand against his shoulder, told him that it was okay. But it wasn't. Not with the catastrophic buzzing in his ears. A swarming of bees, wasps right there battling for his attention. He had distantly felt his drumsticks fall to the ground, his fumbling fingers grasping air. Lead crawling up his throat, clogging it and he was choking–

"Hey hotdog?" Willie had said those words in the softest of whispers, a firm intent behind them and it had shattered through the fizzle surrounding Alex’s head. Everything had vanished abruptly, his tunnel vision cleared into vibrant colours; brown eyes, ethereal sunbathed dusty-brown hair. A pink and purple tie-dye t-shirt. _Willie._

Without knowing it, his brain shot off the first thing he thought up. That he was so incredibly in love with Willie that all the boy had to do was say simple words to jolt him right out of a panic that Reggie and Luke spent hours talking him down from. That the way Willie held him at the moment, his thumbs against the curve of Alex’s cheeks, his hands pressing a gentle heat against Alex’s head awakened him to the real world, to colours he never noticed before.

In that seemingly normal moment — it is normal to him anyway —, he realizes he is in love with Willie. 

“Huh. Weird.” Willie’s eyes crinkle as he smiles like it’s just another day and the best day ever simultaneously. “I’m in love with you too.”

There’s a _whoosh_ in Alex’s chest. That’s the only way he can describe it as his eyes widen. If his heart was beating, it would stop, stutter and then restart to a zooming _budum budum budum._

“You…” Willie has stepped in closer into his space, his hands still warm against Alex’s progressively redder cheeks. “You what?”

“I love you too, hotdog.”

Willie is gentle in the way he closes the distance, tilting his head up and brushing his lips against Alex’s softly. Once, twice, three times before he’s stepping back but Alex’s eyes flutter open just in time to stop Willie, a strong grip against the fabric of the tie-dye, pulling Willie back into his arms. This time, Alex hunches over Willie, closing the distance between their height and bringing hands up to frame Willie’s face as he kisses him. Again and again. And it feels like they’re drowning in each other and coming up for air all at the same time.

Alex has never gotten the chance to kiss someone he's loved before. It's a fever dream and so vibrantly real. It sends a shocking thrill through his system and by the way Willie reciprocates, he feels that gentle addictive electricity too. Just through lips, they talk of the future. Promises of never letting go and finding each other in crowds of people and coloured laughter and saturated affection. And Alex feels okay. Just then. Every worry evaporates like it was never there to begin with. 

He wishes he did it sooner as he pulls back.

“I was waiting a long time to do that.” He rasps, pressing his forehead against Willie’s, his eyes still closed and Willie smiles in triumph just as Alex opens them. 

“Yeah, it seemed like it.” There’s a laugh behind Willie’s words. It takes Alex all of one second to realize what he’s just said and then his whole face is turning bright red again, up to the tips of his ears. Willie uses his moment of flustered disarray to pull Alex back into a kiss.

  
  
  


**4 ----**

  
  


It took him a matter of minutes after becoming a ghost to realize that he may not be able to eat or sleep or bleed but his anxiety followed him into the afterlife, winding around his chest with its inky tendrils and wrapping hands over his throat. 

“Why are we here?” He says it louder than he means to and Reggie and Luke look up at him, eyebrows raised. They are all just lazing around, the air is calm and this feels a little out of left field so of course Luke jokes.

“Why are any of us here?” Luke’s laugh shutters behind his lips at the way lines appear on Alex’s forehead at his response.

“Not helping! You dumbass! No— What are we doing here? Is no one even remotely thinking about the consequences of being seen when we’re dead? Why can we be seen when we play music with Julie— why are we here?!”

He latently realizes he’s wearing the floor down with all of his panicked pacing but he can’t seem to find a way to stop. 

He hears Luke make his stupid runway comment again but it’s a faraway sound, he feels like he’s underwater and the heavy huffs that leave his mouth muffle everything around him.

He only feels himself come back to the present when he hears shuffling feet behind him. The sound of wheels clacking against the studio’s chestnut flooring gets him turning around, he just doesn’t expect the sight before him. Willie stands there, unclipping his helmet, tossing it to Luke and carefully stepping towards Alex.

“Hey hotdog, mind if I join you on the runway?” He says it with a gentle grin on his face but there is concern in the crinkles of his eyes and it makes Alex’s breath stop all together. He thinks not breathing is better than breathing at this point.

He must look like quite a sight standing there, his hair disheveled from his fingers running through them, tugging at them in frustration and confusion and his eyes the size of saucers still silently staring at the sudden appearance of Willie. 

Alex’s gaze falls on the boys over Willie’s shoulder, matching stupid smiles on their faces and he just knows that Willie isn’t really there on his own free will, that there were two idiots behind this. If they were human, Alex would happily call the cops on them and get them arrested for kidnapping. But all he can really do is curse the sky above for giving him best friends who collectively share half a brain cell. 

“I’m so sorry about them—” Willie cuts off his apology with a shake of his head. Of course, he’s already recovered. Alex envies Willie’s knack for adapting to every situation in a matter of seconds, keeping his cool, accepting change with open arms. The irony of Alex having none of those traits is not lost on him.

“Are you okay?” Willie asks as he pushes a piece of golden hair away from Alex’s eyes, closing the distance between them. Alex feels a heat settle down where his heart should be and a smile stretches across his face.

_Willie is worried about him._

“I’m okay. I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.” Alex breathes out. 

“You sure? ‘Cause Luke and Reggie said you were having a major existential crisis.” 

“Yeah I’m- They said what?!” Alex looks over at Luke and Reggie again but the spot where they stood is vacant. Cowards. He’s going to kick their asses back to 1995 when he finds them again.

“I think they’re awesome for worrying about you like they did. Friends like that...Good friends...they’re hard to find.” Alex’s eyes fall back to Willie’s face. There’s longing in the way he softly smiles, and Alex realizes in all his worry, he forgot how much Willie must miss his own family and friends. 

He brushes his finger against Willie’s then, attempting to bring him back to the present just like Willie seems to be so good at doing for him. 

“Hey.” He smiles when Willie looks up at him through long lashes, his beam returning to his face and his hand clasping Alex’s grazing fingers. He plants a soft kiss against the side of Alex’s head, right below his hairline.

The warmth that’s curled into Alex’s chest spreads down his body to the ends of his toes and red dusts his cheeks.

  
  


**5 ----**

There’s a suited man on Sunset Boulevard handing out flyers and on any other day, Alex wouldn’t even have cared what he’s passing around but the large bold letters spelling out CONVERSION THERAPY make his throat go dry.

He stops and Willie knocks against his shoulder at the sudden lack of movement. “Dude...”

Flashes of memory come back to him. 

_“It’s just a phase.”_

_“You’re not actually gay.”_

_“Why don’t you go out with a nice girl. Just test it out.”_

_“Mrs. Anderson’s daughter was asking about you.”_

_“Alex, just consider it. It’s just therapy.”_

_“If you want to live under this roof, you’re not fucking gay.”_

“Will...Willie. Let’s get out of here.” Alex turns away and grits out, swallowing the lump in his throat and shoving his fisted hands in his pocket.

Willie furrows his eyebrows, throwing a look over Alex’s shoulder, his features twisting into disgust then realization right before Alex’s eyes.

They poof over to the skatepark and Willie settles down on their usual spot, curling his feet up over the lip of the bench and Alex follows his movements out of muscle memory. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Willie breathes quietly into the air and only then registers that Alex is not really listening. His green eyes are misty, his lashes wet and his lips quivering. 

“I never told my folks that I was gay.” Willie starts again, messing with the straps of his helmet as he pulls it off his head.

“Huh?” Alex asks in confusion, blinking twice like he’s finding his feet again. _Like he’s rebooting and Willie thinks that adorable even under these distressing circumstances._

“Yeah. My pops would’ve accepted it I’m sure. But I don’t know about mom. She was always hard to read. I lived with her for seventeen years and I still cannot imagine how it would’ve gone down.” There’s a reminiscent smile on Willie’s face, speaking of a softer time that might as well been sepia coloured it was that long ago in his head. A lifetime ago.

“Was it just your parents and you?” Alex asks, pulling his knees up, wrapping his arms around them and settling his chin on top as he scoots in closer to Willie.

“No, no. I had a little sister. Kippy. Skipper. She was a real firecracker. We were part of a pretend rock band and everything. I guess I should’ve told you you were dating the competition.” Willie muses and Alex can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of his throat. 

Willie spends the afternoon telling Alex all about listening to old songs on his dad’s cassette player and painting canvases until dusk and dancing around the living room, rocking out on air guitars and drumming on leather couch arms until his mom would come home. 

“Kippy was getting real good at the drums, I helped her make a homemade drum kit. It wasn’t fancy, or well, even fully functioning but she loved it. I think you would’ve loved her sound.”

Alex is mesmerized with the words that leave Willie’s mouth. It feels like he can see each scene play out in his head like a movie and he can feel, taste, smell each moment like he’s there right next to a 1980s Willie. There’s this pretty magic in the way Willie tells his stories and Alex wishes they could never end.

-

It’s later when Alex poofs back into the garage that he realizes he’s completely forgotten about the Sunset Blvd man. As he teetered on the edge of a dissociative episode, Willie turned it around by simple tales of a better time in his own life. Willie became vulnerable when Alex couldn’t. In that one moment, it all comes to a halt. He realizes something that stretches the smile already on his face an inch higher and flushes his cheeks with the heat of euphoria. _He’s more in love with Willie than he ever thought possible._

  
  
  


**+1: 6 ----**

It's been exactly half a year when everything falls apart and Willie’s will slips through his fingers. The dotted line that owns him tightens around his throat, thick tendrils dragging him kicking and screaming into the inevitable reality that is Caleb.

Willie knows it’s too good to last. He’s been living a pipe dream just a breath away from shattering. _Beauty and love ending in inexplicable tragedy._ A lyric in one of Caleb’s broadway shows at the HGC. He just never thought it could become his life.

It’s just another afternoon of bathing in Alex’s tenderness, laughter and hands that end with a promise to see each other tomorrow. 

"I've got band practise but I'll see you later?" Alex asks, just a touch hopeful like he always is when he's saying goodbye to Willie. _I'll see you again right?_ Like Willie's answer could be anything but _yes yes yes I want to be here next to you forever._

He presses a chaste kiss against Alex's lips in reassurance. "Catch you later, hotdog." 

A smile slots itself back onto Alex's face and he nods and waves before poofing off. 

Their goodbyes are always hard. Alex makes it hard to let go. And Willie thinks Alex is afraid of goodbyes now especially because there was a time where they both knew they wouldn't see each other ever again. Alex was going to cross over, Willie would once again spend an eternity loveless and powerless. An ending to the love story that could’ve been but then Alex was back, he was _alive_. Julie had saved him and unbeknownst to her, had saved Willie in the process.

He is still ablazed in the afterglow of _Alex_ when he turns around and runs right into Caleb. 

He feels like he's been doused with ice cold water, his mouth runs dry and he pulls back like he’s been shocked, taking several steps back.

“Hey—” _Maybe he didn’t see them. Maybe he didn’t see them. Maybe he didn’t see him with Alex_ —

“How long did you think I was gonna let these clandestine meetings of yours slide, William?” 

Something twists in Willie’s stomach at his words. Caleb knew. _He knew._

The cool easy demeanour painting every word, every expression in Caleb’s facade makes Willie’s body lock up with sheer insurmountable fear and his mind screams at him to _Run! Run! RUN!_

Caleb presses a hand to his shoulder then and he knows it’s already too late. Feels the loss of control over his body before he can say another word, bargain a way out, plead if only to see Alex again before Caleb kills him—

“What did you think? Did you think you were fooling me? Did you think you had a card up your sleeve? Darling, I own the fucking deck.”

The venomous anger creeps into Caleb's voice, it's no longer controlled or composed— _Caleb is furious, more furious than Willie has ever seen him._ With each word, the invisible restraints coiling around his body tighten and he realizes he's starting to panic, his vision bleary and unfocused and the fear all too consuming, biting at the edges of his soul.

“I feed every desire you have, William. I give you everything you want and you turn around and stab me in the back just like that? I don’t think so.” Caleb circles around him like a predator creeping its prey and Willie wants to scream. 

Just as he musters up the last fickle remains of his will to plead for the one thing that is worth saving, Caleb rounds on him, brings a hand up and plunges it straight into his chest.

Willie does scream then, an animalistic shriek as he feels the hot white flash tear through his chest and spread down his limbs, leaving jarring pain wherever it touches and cutting him up from the inside out. He chokes on the blood filling his throat and watches in horror as Caleb pulls out a writhing string of blue green from his chest, it glows in his palm and reflects emerald against Caleb’s face.

Willie’s vision blackens around the edges and he knows before Caleb even tears his soulline out of his chest that it's over. He’s going to die.

“You gambled with me and you lost, boy.” Caleb hisses out as he hauls his other arm back and punches Willie across the face, his rings tearing at the flesh of his lips.

Willie registers falling but he doesn’t make impact.

-

_Willie had never been a good listener. He figured that’s what got him into this mess. His dad had told him to “be careful” just as he had stepped out that day and the next thing he knew he was flying back, his vision a blurred blue bleeding into reds and yellows, hitting jagged concrete and succumbing to an eternal darkness._

_Maybe if he had listened, he’d be a 50-year-old man, probably with two kids and a wife he didn’t love._

_But if he had listened_ _—_

_If he had listened, he would never have met Alex. He would never have known of warm conversations, of soft satiating kisses that piece him together, of the comfort of two hands slotting so perfectly together, of laying his head on a chest that reminded him so much of home. He wants to remember those things, he wonders if he can remember the idea of Alex in a mind that ceases to exist._

-

He’s floating. Not quite conscious, not quite real. Not quite a soul.

His head feels stuffed up with cotton, making it hard to form thoughts. He distantly remembers floating on a board in the sugar city he calls home, the wind in his hair and the warm weight of fingers against his hand. He remembers brushing away tufts of blonde and honeyed green eyes and the uptick of kind lips. 

_Alex. Alex. Alex. Alex. Alex. Alex.Alex.Alex.Alex.Alex.Alex.Alex.Alex.Alex.Alex._

He remembers. He wishes he can forget.

He wishes he never met Alex because now he can’t breathe without him. If he'd never met Alex, he wouldn’t have so many memories he couldn’t detach from as he withers out of existence. He never had a need to breathe, to remember, being dead came with its benefits. He could simply put those things behind him, there was no necessity for being alive or sentimental. But Alex gives him the power to. And without him...his chest feels like a rock sits there, tearing at nonexistent lungs with its jagged edges, leaving his mouth bloody. He wonders if Alex ever felt the same way about him. Like if- Like if he can’t feel Alex’s constant warmth next to him, in his hand and against his cheeks, Willie will fall into oblivion. Willie fears oblivion the most.

33 years ago, a dark room left cold in his bones and he fears that oblivion, that darkness, that nothingness. But Alex came out of nowhere, brought a fire with him and touched Willie’s soul, lit him up with it. He’s addicted to that hot warmth like a moth to a flame. 

But now he can’t have it. Not with his dying breaths. Not when he’s so close to disappearing.

He thinks about seeing Alex one last time as he watches his blood _drip drip drip_ down his fingers. And he knows what to do now. Knows how to make sure Alex isn’t shattered by his nonexistence.

And then he finally _lands_. His feet stumbling across a chestnut floor.

-

Alex is alone when Willie poofs into the studio.

He’s already halfway across the room when he sees Willie. Willie with his hazy eyes, swaying back, tilting dangerously and Alex pushes forward and wraps an arm around his waist, gently lowering him to the ground. “WILLIE!”

“ _Willie?!_ ” He screams again, alarm and a deafening fear creeping into his voice, as Willie’s head slumps against his shoulder. Alex’s hand shakes as he grazes a thumb against his cheek, his eyes zeroing in on the red on his skin. 

His lip is bleeding sluggishly but the thing that catches Alex's attention immediately is the blood tumbling down Willie's chest. Even in his unconsciousness, Willie clutches his injured chest with a firm hand, tamping down on the wound. 

Alex’s vision blurs with tears and his teeth chatter in his mouth like his blood has turned ice cold in his veins. It’s a stark contrast to Willie’s too hot skin, almost like he’s running a fever. 

_How is he bleeding? How is he sick? How could this happen? He thought ghosts couldn’t be hurt like this._

_“Blood differentiates ghosts from humans. Being hurt: it's an alive thing.”_ Willie had once said as much in his many lessons on how to ghost.

When he looks back at Willie, his eyes have fluttered open and he takes in his surroundings in a daze. 

"Willie, Willie. It's gonna be okay." Alex's cracking voice seems to awaken Willie completely as he pushes up and attempts to distance himself from Alex. 

"Don't...don't touch me." There's an aggression in Willie's voice he has never been familiarized with and it hurts like a jagged knife twisting.

"I just wanna help. You need a doctor. You need— Julie!" 

"I don't need anyone, I've never needed anyone." He gasps out, pushing at Alex’s chest, leaving a bloody handprint in the stark pink of Alex’s hoodie, right where Alex's heart should be and it makes the coils of barbed wire surrounding Alex’s heart tighten their hold. 

"I've spent so many years alone, fending for myself, with him cutting my soul up until nothing was left– I–"

It hurts to see Willie so raw, so vulnerable, laying in his arms limp and still struggling and Alex can't stand the way he pushes him away. Not Willie. 

It's a spur of a moment decision to press his lips against Willie's. 

It’s stupid and nonsensical but Alex needs to bring him back and he just–

He kisses him. It’s rusty metallic, the taste of iron, leaving Alex’s mouth red with Willie's ripped up lip. But he's lost in it especially when Willie kisses him back weakly but with fervour.

Some moment between Alex presses one hand against Willie's cheek while his other hand curls into the chain around Willie's neck, tugging him closer. But he pulls back the minute he hears the way Willie gasps like Alex has hurt him and before he has the chance to let go completely, Willie crawls back from his arms, forgetting about his bloody chest and forgetting about Alex's hold on the key necklace. They both hear the way it snaps, the jiggling of the key against a broken chain falling to the floor near Alex's knees and Willie’s groan at the friction of metal against his skin. 

Alex's head snaps up to take in his reaction and he sees the way Willie falls further into himself. There's resignation there too and Willie swallows before saying the next words.

"I want to break up." He doesn't make eye contact with Alex as he says the hollowed out words, he just stares down at the key on the floor. 

Alex trembles, his face paling as each second passes. But he swallows the shards of pain because he doesn’t care. Not when Willie is hurt.

“Willie, please. You’re hurt– Please!” Alex pleads, crawling closer to his slumped form.

“No! Don’t!” Willie brings a hand up to stop Alex, shaking his head, tears swimming in his eyes as he hisses out. “Did you hear me?! I want to break up!” 

It’s supposed to be firm but it comes out fickle, all cracked around the edges and Alex holds a sob in. Willie doesn't want this, it's clear even in the mist of his eyes. 

“Okay...Just let me help you...please.”

Willie looks up at him, opening shaking lips. “N–”

Willie flickers and disappears almost entirely before appearing again and Alex freezes at the glitching painful expression on his face, his eyes widening because _Willie is_ flickering, _he’s more hurt than he thought- What did Caleb do to him?!_

When Willie solidifies again, there’s shock on his face and he shakes his head at Alex as he tries to come closer again. “No, no. I didn’t– I didn’t want you to see– No–” And then Willie is poofing off, almost like he was never there.

Except there’s blood where he sat limp, bearing witness and darkening as it sits on the cold floor.

-

Alex is curled in on himself when Luke and Reggie step into the studio.

"Alex! Alex, what’s wrong?" 

Luke presses an urgent hand against his knee to get his attention, they're wet. His knees are wet. It all makes sense when Alex looks up. There are tears in his eyes, his face is soaked with them like he’s walked through a raging storm. A chain dangles from Alex’s fist and Luke carefully and slowly unravels his clenched fingers. A small silver key sits in his palm digging against the soft meat of his hand, mere seconds away from puncturing the skin. _A key._ On a chain. Around a neck. He’s hit with familiarity so strong, he can almost imagine where he’s seen it before. Tie-dye tee. Movement, carefree laughter, the screechy _whirr_ of wheels against concrete.

"He's...he's gone. I looked everywhere for him. But he’s gone. Willie's gone." Alex’s voice halts his mental formation of the boy that came skating into their lives, incessantly, gently, chaotically.

_Willie._

“No...” Reggie shudders as he wraps his arms around Alex’s form, pushing his nose into Alex’s hair.

_No. Not Willie..._

“He flickered. He flickered in front of me. Caleb did something to him and he disappeared. Luke, he disappeared. I watched him disappear. I couldn’t do anything.” With each gasp that leaves his mouth, with each tear that tumbles down his face, Luke feels his inside fill with despair and fear. “Get Julie. Please, Luke, I need Julie.” 

Luke tamps down on the sob clinging to his lips and nods his head before poofing off. 

He returns with Julie on his heels, she’s running, her curls whipping behind her as she halts in front of Alex. She falls to her knees, pulls his face up from where it sits pressed up in the crook of his arm.

“He’s not gone, okay? I can _feel_ it. He’s somewhere. And we’re gonna find him.” There’s so much determination on her face, a golden glow in her eyes, it’s jarring to Alex but it lights a small flame of hope in his chest, brings light back where there was only darkness and he thanks whoever rules the heavens for giving him the gift of Julie. He wipes at his nose, grabs one of her hands against his cheeks and squeezes.

“Okay.” _He can do this. He can find Willie. Just like Willie always finds him._ “What do I do?”

“Remember the night of the Orpheum, how you guys just appeared on stage?”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking about each of you, calling to you. Hoping against hope that you would answer.” Julie responds, a small smile appearing on her face at the memory. “Even though I had accepted that you could have crossed over, I never lost hope.”

“We heard you.” Luke whispers into the air, settling down next to Julie on the floor, pressing against her side in comfort.

“I need you to do that, ‘lex. Start with physical attributes if you have to and then think about how he makes you feel. Don’t lose hope, okay? We’re right here to help you. Just breathe and think about him.” She says it as she tightens her hold in Alex’s hand as reassurance. Reggie clasps his fingers over the expanse of his shoulder and Luke presses his hand against his knee. 

“You got this, Alex.” Reggie says softly against him and it’s all the comfort, confirmation and reassurance he needs to know he can do this. _Bring Willie back._

Alex feels the key in his hand, presses it closer to his chest as he closes his eyes and pictures Willie in his head. 

_Just breathe._

Soft brown strands sitting against enthusiastic shoulders, an easy sunlit smile and endless lines of crinkles around deep brown eyes. Hands that bring hope and adventure and lips that know just the right things to say. Lips soft against his, inviting and sweet, he can taste the wind and the calming waves against the shore. Mesmerizing words and tales of loved ones. 

He can breathe. Something uncoils in his chest. There’s a weight of warmth sweeping over his body and he knows it’s Willie. It’s the way Willie makes him feel.

_He helps you breathe again._

_“Nobody’s ever been able to calm me down like that.”_

_“I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad I met you.”_

_“I’ll see you around, hotdog.”_

_“I think I’m in love with you.”_

_“Huh. Weird. I’m in love with you too.”_

_“Hey hotdog, mind if I join you on the runway?”_

_“Are you okay?”_

_He’s more in love with him than he ever thought possible._

There’s rain against his face and he opens his eyes to see how it could possibly be raining in the studio but anxiety rushes through him when he realizes he’s not in the studio anymore. He sits on the pavement of Sunset Boulevard, smack dab in the middle of traffic. 

Cars surround him, all black, all shrouded in the shadows of the heavy clouds above them. He’s just starting to figure out what this all could possibly mean as he wipes rain out of his eyes when something zooms past him. He almost doesn’t catch him with how fast he’s going but it’s Willie. The swaying long brown hair and the cracked helmet are unmistakable and Alex breaks into a run, screaming Willie’s name as he does.

_I’m always chasing you. Please. Please don’t go this time._

But Willie is unhearing, just before he disappears around the corner, he leaves something behind. Alex slows down as he comes up to it, it’s a thin turquoise coloured string. Sitting vibrantly against the soot covered pavement, it glows brighter when Alex brushes his fingers against it. It feels right in his hands somehow, he feels closer to Willie, can feel the euphoria of his smile and the tender way he wraps his arms around Alex's shoulders. He holds it close to his chest, collecting it within his arms as he follows it through the dead glass city of Los Angeles. 

He finds the end of the string: it’s a key. It’s Willie’s key. It sits a few steps away from the grueling sight that is Willie himself.

Willie lays unconscious at an intersection, there’s a smoking gray car dented on the right and his skateboard sits abandoned near the wheel of it. Cracks web around Willie, like he made impact with the ground so hard, it broke under him and Alex is rushing to him on shaky legs, a litany of _No No NO_ leaving his mouth. _No, not again. Not again._

Alex falls to his knees in front of him, hands trembling as they hover over Willie. His face is pale, his lips ashy and his closed eyes unmoving and he’s sopping wet from head to toe, rain collecting in his hair and it sends Alex hurtling back into disarray, an aching pain spreads through his limbs and it feels like he’s dying with Willie.

He doesn’t know what to do! He doesn’t know what to do… Julie didn’t say anything about having to see Willie die again. He doesn’t know–

  
  


That’s when he notices the gaping hole in Willie’s chest. It reminds him how his chest feels every time his panic hits but...but Willie’s always there to fix it. He brings life back into his soul with a few soft whisper of words and tender touches. 

_If Willie can do it for him, why can’t he do it for Willie?_

The hole expands before his eyes and the sinking feeling seizes his stomach. If Alex doesn’t do something soon, it’ll swallow Willie. He doesn’t know what to do. The helplessness makes his throat clog up and fresh tears swim in his eyes, licking his cheeks as they fall. This is not a good time for a panic attack, he can’t need Willie to fix him when he has to fix Willie. It’s his bleary vision that brings the vibrancy of the string of blue in his arms into focus and he notices how the key glows a sharp gold in the palm of his hand. 

The key that always sits at Willie’s chest. The key. The string. The chest. 

It’s a last ditch effort. He doesn’t even know if it’s going to work but Julie told him not to lose hope. Reggie and Luke believe in him. Willie believes in him.

He’s gentle in the way he places the mass of string and the metal key into the progressively larger hole in Willie’s chest. They get swallowed into the inky blackness and Alex’s chest tightens in expectation.

“Please come back. Please come back to me.” He whispers as he puts his hands against Willie’s cheeks. They are no longer hot like he’s sick. They are cold, colder with the thunderous unstopping rainfall on his skin. Like– like he’s–

A sob ravages through Alex’s lungs and he presses his lips against Willie’s, once, twice, thrice. One last hope. The power of love and all– and he loves Willie so much, he's willing to swap places right this second if it means he can hear Willie call him hotdog one last time. _Please God._

He sits up, waits and watches Willie. Waits for something, anything, any little movement. Any little sign that it's worked.

"Please. Please. Please. Please." He clasps his hands together, looking up at the warring purple sky, begging, praying for a miracle. Begging for his Willie back. _He needs him back._

But nothing happens.

Then everything happens all at once. 

It’s like something out of a movie.

An intertwine of Gold and Teal brim out of the gaping hole, swirling through Willie’s chest, stitching it back together and settling over his arms and legs, grazing against his fingertips, toes and ending at the tips of his eyelashes.The glow floats just under the skin of his face, making his cheeks radiate with it before dissipating.

The angry storm ends. 

It's slow but he sees the way Willie's chest begins to heave up and down like he's breathing again and then, his eyes flit open and a gasp erupts from his mouth as he sits up and looks straight at Alex crouched down next to him.

Alex is still unmoving, frozen in disbelief and he blinks once, twice before bringing his shaking fingers up to Willie's cheeks, checking if this is real.

_If Willie is actually there with him and not dying of a gaping hole in his chest._

Silence fills the space all of two seconds, Alex's eyes silently raking over Willie's face before Willie interrupts it..

“I always knew you were the key to my heart.” It’s breathless like Willie’s been underwater for longer than he should’ve been and it’s a bad joke, stupid even but it’s Willie’s joke. 

_It’s Willie._

Laughter bubbles around the wracking tears in Alex’s throat and he surges forward to kiss Willie like it’s the first time. Willie presses forward with just as much zeal, his hands tightening in Alex’s shirt.

Willie tastes of life, like finding shelter from the storm and drinking in heat on a cold day or the soft sand beneath beach feet. He tastes of the earth and the sea and the sun and Alex never wants to stop, never wants to get too far away. When they separate, Willie looks radiant again just like the very first time Alex met him, all red lips and healthy glow, not one sign of the ashy grayness that overtook his features just minutes ago and Alex knows he'd save him again and again and again if it meant that he could hear Willie's dumb cheesy pickup lines again.

But he knows now that this can never happen again. Alex refuses to (almost) lose Willie a third time.

"Never do that again." He says, pressing his forehead against Willie's. "I'm never letting you go again."

"I'm sorry I—." _I’m sorry I pushed you away._ Willie bites his lips, opens his mouth again but Alex shakes his head in understanding.

"I know." He answers, pulling Willie back into his arms, pressing a gentle hand against the back of his neck and breathing him in, as alive as a ghost can be and all there, no flicker in sight and Alex feels the flame of hope in his chest grow immensely in size.

The sounds of cheers and excited screams fill the background and three pairs of arms envelop Alex and Willie in a cocoon of warmth.

  
  
  


**They are home.**

**Author's Note:**

> FIND ME ON [theobligatedklutz](https://theobligatedklutz.tumblr.com) and come yell at me about what yall think about this fic.


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